


Drabble : Tell Me

by paladzin



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Slight fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:34:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29361096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paladzin/pseuds/paladzin
Summary: I’ll write a drabble about my character confessing something to yours [be it a love confession, a secret, feel free to specify. /  song lyrics used : pressure by milk & bone
Relationships: Levi Ackerman/Erwin Smith
Kudos: 1





	Drabble : Tell Me

**you're like good water pressure  
in a cold rainy summer. . .  
  
  
understand what it means to BURN** **,** what it means to **SURRENDER**. picked fresh white feathers plucked from weathered skin; pray tell what does it mean to live without regret _**?**_ ;( re: a young wolf born of a household lack in dignity. where nightingale’s sorrow sing softly in the moonlight crevice. _i._ remember, all are enemies. _ii._ beasts is all we know **)** o keeper of blood **&** ash **&** bone, pray tell, how do you live with the corpses marked at your feet _**?**_ a youth long sense lost, he grew too fast. he learned how to kill too young. doe eyed **&** knobbed knees, shaken **&** freight : those wide child-like eyes wanted to only survive. when did it turn into a game of survival _**?**_ eat or be eaten _**?**_ he’s long since forgotten. Brash skin marked with bruises line his body, various cracks scattered & invisible bonds hold them together if they don't. . . he will surely shatter. He's forgotten when instinct became his only saving grace, forgotten when his mind decided : live like a wolf in the den. Teeth bared & ready with a blade. ready to strike. a soft wisp of air escapes through the hollow of his lungs, what little walls built have ruptured from stone to rubble. he thinks for a fleeting moment : when did he become this ?   
  
unraveled **&** shell cracked. faint clasps of belts echo in the room, nothing but heated sighs and gasps erupt from chapped lips. when did this. . . a hand that has held corpses touches his forearm. a hand that has held strength seems so fragile now against his own skin. there is no false pretense that is within that touch, no façade against the inside of his wrist. it's . . . _gentle_. that singular vein holding his life pulses as equally tattered lips grace it with the kiss of the death. gaze is trained holding his own against eyes as blue as the sky he had yearned to see so long ago. lips of his own press tight for a brief moment, his gaze breaks as heat builds in his face. **(** _i_. remember : everyone is an enemy. / _please don't leave me. . . why did you walk away?_ ii. i taught you how to survive so **survive**. **)** breathe is caught in his ashen throat, taking root in the softest thrums of his ribcage. a single kiss pressed against where life is held within his own being. It is here every fiber of his being tells him to act as the wolf in the den. **(** can you feel it _ **?**_ keeper of the crept, of the damned and molten feathers. what will you do ** _?_ )** fingers curl on reflex against shoulders, spine correcting itself. he hears his name spoken like a virtue against his skin and he breathes. when did he become so soft ** _?_ ** gentle are the kisses placed along the bone of his collar. soft whispers pressed into the hollow of his throat. no. . . his hand travels down to a phantom limb **&** curl upon the empty sleeve. when did they become this _**?**_ lips as tattered as the chest pressed against his own, they press against ones that have held soft screams for the broken, ones that have tasted blood **&** decaying flesh.  
  
**all that you can deliver**  
**I want it bad. . .**

grey undertone irises stare into those blue ones. Gently does he trail corpse ridden finger tips against a jawline that has long seemed to forgot how to unclench, over lips that had been cracked open and are still slightly bruised. an empty threat just moments ago left him, empty words falling on deaf ears. he knew better than to fight, he knew. . . they both did. foreheads press together in a moment of sanctuary. safety is forever lost to him but this _ **?**_ this single arm now holding him steady in a lap that has become his home : he will lose this. Death has not ever been kind to him or was if Life that was to blame _ **?**_ he can feel those ivory bones clasping around his throat, can feel the hardness of them digging into the man that he sits upon. he begged in the only he knows how : an crass threat to break those legs. **(** tell me. . . can you still weep for a man whose dead while he breathes ** _?_ )**  
  
**❛** levi. . . **❜**  
  
soft does he whisper his name again. like a unholy prayer. a religion becomes he : his sword, his shield. no matter the splints that show he will defend Erwin until the end. he moves, head pressed against the hollow of Erwin's neck, where _it_ rests as well. leather seems to be a hot iron against his skin. it sears into flesh that has long been marked and it seems to drag them both down into a black hole. co-existing monarchs with rusting crowns **&** singed shoulder blades. what little words left to speak have been lost within a crumbling rib cage. Erwin's arm stays holding him, tighter. gripping him like he is the last thread of life he has before it's cut. it’s there in his throat, lurking in the black of it. _tell him !_ **(** what god would have mercy upon such damned souls _ **?**_ ** & ** tell them a lie : you can both survive. **)** there is no way to ease the knots twisted up in his stomach. **(** use anything, anything to keep his anchor. tell him what it is to have a fractured skull. to have a rib cage cracked open, yanked apart  ** & ** the soft thum of heart ease to a painful rest. **)**  
  
**❛** Erwin. . . **❜**  
  
** ( ** empty threat  ** )** it's lost in his throat once more. a single vow they knew once started. One or both of them will die. to have his Achille’s heel poured from a punctured lung  ** & ** strangle his own throat. irony is a dangerous game. what more can a broken bird do _ **?**_ he has thrashed against the bars so much now. his own body is breaking or was that just his heart _ **?**_ he pulls back finally and feels it. that same rush of emotion begging to overtake him and use his vessel. eyes are trained on the single jewel that lays right at the center of them, right at the center of Erwin's chest. that is not a marker of Commandership. that is a marker for the next to fall among all the other bodies that pave their way to having a future. _tell him !  
  
_ **❛** levi. **❜**  
  
it is the same warrant that he holds for just them. how he wishes for a different life : it's damn near _laughable_. that same little boy who cowered in the corner, who was nothing but bone with barely any flesh clinging to him. how he yearned for a different life above the catacombs. and he got it but at what cost ** _?_** he feels a hand press against his touch in the softest of touches and he caves. at what cost ** _?_** does death not know any greed _ **?**_ he has given up his soul, he has given up his closest friends that made up all the heart strings he had left : please don't take him too. he presses into the firm hand and covers it with his own, fingers interlacing with a single silence of wanting a savior. isn't that just irony's game? a savoir wanting a savior. it's mockery again. those words build again, hinging on his vocal cords and squeezing, yearning to vibrate off his tongue and speak them into existence. teeth bare down against teeth, he can't : if he does. . . will he vanish from sight _ **?**_ he closes his eyes, faint images of all those who have died plague. **(** no rest for the wicked. no rest for those who wish to defy law. **)** he hears his name whispered again but it's against his lips.  
  
**❛** Erwin. . . **❜**  
  
he cuts it short as if a knife has cut across his mid-throat. he presses back against lips aren't cold, aren't dead **(** yet **) &** he yearns. yearns for anything and everything that is he : his Commander. his savior. his vice ** &** virtue. an eternity seems to pass by & they are frozen in this moment. a picture he wishes to be carved betwixt his rib cage and right in the home of his heart. breath passes between them as they do not let go of another one. his gaze shifts again to the phantom limb that has been sacrificed. a fleeting moment of self reflection, if he had been there. . . would have it played out dif--  
  
**❛** levi, don't. **❜**  
  
grey irises turn back Erwin's. he knows what Levi is thinking, thinking of the what if's. he pauses his thought as he sits up more and leans against the wooden desk. this is isn't it. it's over. . . isn't it? he holds the jewel that hangs from Eriwn's neck in his palm and he can see it. ashen corpses that have built this path, the screams of youth that died in the teeth of giants and are now burning in those stomachs. decaying & rotting. something eats at him. . . gnawing at his insides and tearing into them. He remembers this feeling only twice in his life. and now a third. . . he drops the jewel and he can feel those eyes boring into him, taking him apart bone by bone.  
  
**❛** Erwin. . . **❜**  
  
never does the other push him. Levi has whispered his name repeatedly like that this whole time, he knows what it means and he is patient with his ~~broken~~ bird. those threats were empty, a false pretense to whatever emotion was eroding within the other man that sits upon his lap. acid burning within him and whatever he wishes to say seems to be a struggle. but he knows. he has longed to say those words to Levi but never has. _Why_ he suddenly wonders. . . here sits he : a king that has finally been met with a check mate, a tarnished crown crusted with blood sits upon his head and yet Levi . . . Levi is still there at his side, blades resting between those spaces of his ribs & body laying at his feet among the other pile of corpses he has made. he reaches, fingers touching his sword that sits perched on him. whatever words that Levi wishes to say are starting to seep through his skin and the cracks that liter it. but still Levi remains without saying them and so does he.  
  
a whole day . . . has it even been a day ** _?_** two ** _?_** hours _ **?**_ he doesn't know anymore. everything seems to mingle together except that moment he thinks back on. His gaze is fixed, cloudy, and he can feel those words building again, choking him to speak them to the man that lay dying.

**is this your heart beat?**  
**or is it mine?**  
**heavy but slowly. . .**  
**save it for now.**

  
finally, those words thum within his chest , but it is too late. he sits there on a rooftop, body exhausted and his ribcage shattered within. there before him lay the man whom he almost saved. the man he almost damned back to this hell hole. he can hear the snap of gear and knows the others are close by. irony is a cruel game. he leans over his Commander and his lips press against skin that is now murky, cold -- finally he says what he wished he had spoke back in that moment in that office. they tumble out his lips that remain against a dead man's forehead. tell him.  
  
**❛** I love you Erwin Smith. Rest now. About the Beast Titan. . . it'll have to wait but I promise you. I will kill him. **❜**


End file.
